Judi Dench to Receive Zurich Film Festival’s Golden Icon Award

By Stewart Clarke

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Judi Dench will be honored with the Golden Icon award at the Zurich Film Festival. The Oscar-winning actress will attend the festival to collect the award and to present her new movie, “Red Joan.”

A longstanding star of stage and screen, Dench has appeared in such films as “Victoria & Abdul,” “Philomena” and “Mrs Brown.” She also played M in several Bond films.

In Trevor Nunn’s “Red Joan,” she plays Joan Stanley, who is enjoying a peaceful retirement when she’s arrested by MI5 and accused of providing intelligence to Communist Russia. Sophie Cookson (“Kingsman”) plays the young Joan.

Dench, who recently wrapped on Disney’s “Artemis Fowl,” won an Oscar and a BAFTA for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in “Shakespeare in Love.”

“With an Academy Award and six further Academy Award nominations to her name, along with numerous other awards, Judi is a true icon,” co-founders Nadja Schildknecht and Karl Spoerri said in a statement. “She has enjoyed an extraordinary acting career across film, television and on stage. We are thrilled to welcome her to Zurich and to screen her latest film, ‘Red Joan.’”

The Zurich Film Festival has already announced that Donald Sutherland will receive its Lifetime Achievement Award . Much of the program for the festival has also been unveiled . Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book” is the opening night movie, and there will be European premieres of “The Old Man and the Gun,” which Robert Redford says is his last movie as an actor, and “Life Itself.”

The 14th Zurich Film Festival runs Sept. 27-Oct. 7.